I'm kind of at an impass. I want my players of a new game to have awesome weapons but feel that they should be earned. One of them has even said, that because their character has been around since the Horus Heresy that they have established the Legacy Weapon but because of the newness of the game I want a legacy weapon to be something that they earn mentioned in the Tome of Blood. Any advice?

Personally, I agree with you - being given awesome, powerful stuff at the very beginning removes one of the motivations of both player and character, to go in search of hidden artifacts and weapons. There's no need to do that if you already have amazingly powerful weapons and equipment.

Just because his Marine is from the Horus Heresy means nothing. He shouldn't be allowed to use backstory just to get all the equipment he wants. I'd say his character has to earn weapons such as those, just as you seem to feel.

Thank you for the reply Millandson, I agree with you but he pointed out and this is something I missed scanning the rules is that I guess Legacy weapons can still evolve during game play. I dunno, I caved in knowing that but I guess I'll have to re read the rules on Legacy Weapons.

I'd agree with your player there. The point of a Legacy weapon is not that you get something powerful, but that you have something and it becomes powerful through the association with you during your adventures. It is in fact the very anti-thesis of the traditional "Kill enemies and take their stuff because it's better than the stuff we currently have" and I personally wouldn't ever use something as a Legacy weapon that I obtain late in the game. What's the point? It's likely powerful in its own right. A Legacy weapon should be either something that one has at the very start of the game or something that you get at the end of the prologue of the campaign, something that will define your adventures - perhaps the chainsword of your mentor that you just "inherited" by prying it out of his dead hands, succeeding the old fool in his quest to create a new Black Crusade.

Legacy weapons are explicitly meant to be able to be acquired during character creation, and are meant to represent particular pieces of gear like Gorechild that really gain their benefit from being a character's 'signature weapon.' Gorechild is a pretty sweet chainaxe, but if Khârn has it, it's one of the best in the galaxy.

I think the most important thing is not when he gets it but why he gets it.

The idea behind a legacy weapon is the history that it has intwined with its owner, as long as the player puts in the effort with the backstory and history I say go for it.

For me it's not about being powerful or not but making the game as interesting and cool as possible.

True I've come to agree on most points of allowing Legacy Weapons to be created and used. I think that having them makes the game a lot more fun to play and realize that while I like when I as a player earn levels through game play that it makes it all that much more fun but a weapon that is a legacy in the making is something that I'm paying attention to more because they use the weapon so often and it's a cool addition to Black Crusade and I can remember certain situations when hey I used the Bloodthirster to get myself out of that combat. Memories are cool in role playing games.